New Zealand - Papua New Guinea trade relationship and statistics

Papua New Guinea and New Zealand have a growing bilateral trading relationship. Papua New Guinea is New Zealand’s third largest Pacific trading partner (excluding Australia).

Exports from New Zealand to PNG (in the year to December 2009)

• Exports from NZ to PNG (NZ$153m) continue to rise
• Our top exports to PNG remain more or less the same (sheepmeat, iron or non-alloy steel, quicklime, used clothing, milk powder and butter)
• PNG is NZ’s largest Pacific market for sheepmeat products (19th overall), and textiles/clothing/footwear (4th overall, primarily used clothing)

Imports from PNG to New Zealand (in the year to December 2009)

• Imports from PNG (NZ$33m) are markedly down on the previous years and are the lowest for a decade but still trending gently upwards
• Our top imports from PNG remain the same (crude oil, coffee, and timber)
• The decrease in imports is primarily due to a traditionally irregular importation of crude oil that occurs every two years or so, and which was particularly large in 2008 and particularly small in 2009
• At the same time, there were decreases in the amount of timber and oil cake imported from PNG
• PNG is NZ’s second largest Pacific supplier of agricultural products (42nd overall)

Visitors and migration (in the year to December 2009)

• Short term visitors from PNG to NZ are up slightly on the last two years, but still trend downwards
• Short term visitors from NZ to PNG continue to increase slightly reflecting a continued upwards trend
• Long term migration from PNG to NZ is fairly static and small (159 in 2009)
• Long term migration from NZ to PNG is slightly higher than the year previous reflecting a gentle upwards trend (150 in 2009)

New Zealand’s bilateral trade statistics are available from Statistics New Zealand.